Saturday, May 3, 2014

It has been really hard balancing everything these last several months but I just finished my practicum and loved it. As most everyone knows I have been studying working with children with learning disabilities, autism, and global delays. It was a great 5 week practicum, and left me with a very positive feeling toward the work elementary school teachers are doing. Not just academically but each one of the teachers I worked with were excellent at teaching life skills constantly in the classroom. About the ethics of being a good person in life. They said because many young ones don't have structure and guidance at home they work hard to talk about good basics each child should know. There was constant guidance from the teachers on being kind to each other in the class. Being honest. Being nice. Talking and treating others properly. And when the students didn't treat each other well verbally, or physically, the teachers would make them sit at a table outside the group until they came and apologized to the other student for their actions. Most teachers had a saying on the wall written out so the children could be prompted if they forgot the wording...but it was along the lines of "sorry Minju that I scowled at you. Scowling at others is not appropriate conduct because it makes others feel bad." They did that for hitting, or being grouchy, or being selfish, or any number of other things that were not nice. It really made me appreciate the hard work the teachers are doing trying to get the students to be conscious of their actions and words. They were on top of it all the time. Anyway, it made a very good impression on me because I could see that it was teaching the students beyond just books - but how to be good people in the future. I think things would be different in high school of course but the elementary school teachers are really doing their best with this kind of instruction.

Now I am back to teaching at the college on Monday. Will have to check on the progress of all my students and see who needs help with what. The weather has improved a lot over the last couple weeks so I have started riding my motorcycle. Stopped and bought new flourescent gear today so I glow nice and bright. :-) If it stops raining I would be even happier, but even being a little warmer makes a huge difference on the road. But the savings in gas is incredible so that makes me really happy. :-))))

Pearl and Harvey are doing really well. They are presently pooped out on the bed being sweet little cupcakes. When I get less lazy I will upload some pics of them.